


Wild Draw Four

by dewinter



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: And Now With Gratuitous Uno, Closeted Character, Gareth Southgate National Treasure, Gratuitous Chess, Injury Recovery, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 15:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16390058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewinter/pseuds/dewinter
Summary: International break comes at the worst possible moment. Dele's injured, and Eric's out of form, and they're just starting to work out how to be together. Eric's not ready for the secret to get out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lordsanga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordsanga/gifts).



Eric fumbles for his phone where it’s buzzing on the bedside table. It’s still dark outside. He blinks at the screen – quarter to six, and it feels like he’s barely slept. Muscle memory gets him out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen, dragging a hoodie over his head as he goes. Everything’s sluggish. He yawns widely as he wrestles some Weetabix into a bowl and flicks the coffee on. The bright kitchen lights make his eyes ache.

_Feel like death,_ he texts H one-handed, shovelling cereal gracelessly into his mouth.

_Same mate  
V + I up all night :(_

Eric sends back a frowny face. There isn’t much to say.

There’s a sound from the doorway. He looks up, mouth full of cereal. Dele shuffles into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and squinting. His hair’s out of kilter, and the baggy t-shirt he’s wearing is slipping off his shoulder.

“D’I wake you?” Eric asks.

“S’okay,” Dele says through a yawn. “Wanted to say bye, anyway.” He looks as dead as Eric feels.

Eric nods, and keeps eating. “Sleep okay?” he asks. He woke up once during the night – Dele was curled up on the other side of the bed, clinging onto the edge of the mattress. They’re still working out how to share a bed. The mattress feels too small, and too big, all at once. A chasm of inches between them.

“Be better if your feet weren’t freezing,” Dele grumbles mildly, helping himself to Eric’s coffee. Eric doesn’t even bother trying to protest.

“Big boy, aren’t I? Long way for the blood to go.”

Dele raises his eyebrows evilly, but takes pity on him. “You picking H up?”

“Mm. Kids kept him up all night.”

Dele scratches at his side. Eric’s brain wakes up just enough to realise Dele’s wearing his t-shirt – and the rest of him wakes up enough to work out that he likes it; he likes it _a lot._ He likes Dele’s hair unkempt and his eyes sleepy and slow-blinking, and he likes the echo of Dele’s hands on him – they fell asleep folded together, warm and close, even if they somehow contrived to untangle themselves during the night.

“Any messages for Walks?”

Dele laughs, throatier than usual. “Give him a flick on the ear, the bellend. Fuck, I just thought – _Winksy_. You gonna -? Shoulda asked Tripps what he’d got planned.”

“We’ll think of something.”

“Video it, yeah?”

“Course.” It’s not much different from usual, the sort of clipped monosyllabic conversation they have over breakfast at Hotspur War, except they’re in Eric’s kitchen instead, and it’s still dark outside, and it’s just the two of them, alone, and they fucked again last night, and it’s new, and weird, but it’s not the first time; it’s been happening more and more often – almost _frequently –_ and the weirdest thing is how it’s not weird, not at all – it feels like there was never a time when they _weren’t_ fucking – and in a few minutes Eric’s leaving to play for England, once he’s finished his cereal, and when he gets back it’ll probably keep happening, and it should feel weird, and scary, but it doesn’t, which is a lot to cope with at six in the morning, with Dele dressed in Eric’s old t-shirt and not much else.

“Leg okay?” he asks, because that’s safer ground than saying _where did you learn to suck cock like that Del_ or something equally embarrassing.  

Dele shrugs. His eyes close off. The end of October looks a long way away. City on the horizon, and Jan and Chris out now, too.

Eric clears his throat, and says gruffly, “Wish you were coming – St George’s, I mean.”

“Aw, gonna miss me?”

Eric feels his face heat up. He pushes the remnants of his Weetabix round the bowl with his spoon, so he doesn’t have to keep looking at Dele. It’s gone soggy.

He makes a big show of checking his phone. “Told H I’d pick him up at half past. Better get going.”

Dele finishes Eric’s coffee for him, and leans against the stove, watching Eric as he chucks his bowl in the sink and puts the milk back in the fridge.

“Seeing the physio at ten,” he says. “Might be good news.”

“Text me, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dele says softly. These are the bits they’re not good at – the leave-takings and the greetings, the bits in between, the bits that could be profound or nonchalant or awkward or genuine or all of the above – the bits that could just be a version of how they used to be around each other, before they started this – whatever _this_ is.

The same, and not the same. Eric steps into Dele’s space and kisses him before he can talk himself out of it, brushing his body against Dele’s.

“Bye,” he says, insufficiently. Dele tastes bitter, and Eric loves it.

“Don’t get beat,” Dele says.

Eric pinches his side and leaves the kitchen before things escalate. He’s distracted on the drive to H’s, thinking about whether Dele’s gone back to bed, his body cocooned in Eric’s blankets and the residual warmth of Eric’s body, or whether he’s busy using up Eric’s good shower gel and running up Eric’s water bill, and whatever else he might be doing in the shower. Eric switches on 5 Live to make his mind shut up.

H is waiting, of course, standing in the doorway with the hall lights streaming out into the greying morning. Kate reaches up to kiss him, her arms full of Vivienne, and Eric sees her say something, something comforting and encouraging, and sees H’s doleful face break into a smile. _Don’t get beat,_ he hears Dele say.

“Alright,” H says as he clambers into the car. Eric waves at Kate, and laughs when she waggles Vivienne’s tiny little hand at him.

“Freezing, innit,” Eric says, reversing.

“Should get the dogs over, mate,” H says. “Let both of ours on the bed last night. Nearly suffocated me – warm, though.”

“Del –” Eric starts, and stops himself just in time, because H doesn’t know. H isn’t allowed to know that Dele keeps Eric warm at night, even when he’s wriggled over to the other side of the bed, and that Eric’s getting used to him being there, a solid, snoring _lump_ whenever he snakes a cautious hand across the mattress, and that three nights ago Eric woke up with Dele’s arm heavy across his chest and his thigh slung carelessly across Eric’s knees. H doesn’t know.

He peels off too quickly; the wheels spin momentarily in the gravel before they bite, and then they’re off into the morning.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first day has him drained. He shakes enough hands to wear the skin from his palms. Backslaps and fist-bumps enough even for Walks. The new boys are shy, and loath to show it, and hang back to hide that they don’t know their way around. The boss hovers on the periphery, beaming awkwardly, a brief look of panic crossing his face every time someone approaches him, in case they try something more complex than a simple handshake.

The first training session drags by. He’s still not shaken the early morning from his limbs. And he’s out of form – he doesn’t need some jumped-up radio jock to tell him that. Some passes he places; others he doesn’t. A heartbeat behind the action at all times. _Hurry up, old man,_ Dele’s voice in his head says.

Lunch is a relief – and after lunch, they rewatch the semi-final, slumped in uncomfortable conference room chairs. On screen, Tripps scores - their faces looked so hopeful, then, so determined, so _sure_ this was it, the new dawn they’d been threatening. _Fools,_ Eric thinks, before it all begins to fray.  Somewhere near the end of normal time, Eric looks around. Ghosts of the summer. Maguire’s hidden his face in the neck of his training top. Tripps is watching through his fingers. John’s eyes are out of focus. It’s torture.

Gareth must sense it, must feel the dejection in the air – he turns the match off before the final whistle, before they can see themselves collapsed in small white heaps on the pitch, heads bowed in misery. He lets them go without a detailed post-mortem. Mandzukic’s face lingers, frozen in a triumphant howl.

“Fucking _brutal,_ ” Trent says grimly, as they leave the conference room.

Eric grunts in agreement.

“You up for a game later?” Trent asks, on the way to the gym.

“Hmm?”

“Chess – said I’d bring my board, di’n’t I?”

“Oh,” Eric says. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be cool.”

Trent grins, and jogs off, as though the weight’s already lifting. Eric feels heavier and heavier as he follows him.

It’s late afternoon before he makes it to his room at St George’s. It might be the same one as last time. Then again, it might not. It’s bland and soulless, and could be anywhere. It’s quiet, though, and private, and he doesn’t take off his shoes before hopping onto the bed.

He unlocks his phone – messages from his brothers, a few Google alerts for news stories he doesn’t remember subscribing to, a missed call from his mum. A meme from Dele. The old lady from _Titanic,_ saying _it’s been eighty four years..._

_When bae goes away for a day,_ the caption reads. Eric’s face goes hot.

_lol,_ he texts back before he can overthink it. Dele comes straight online, but doesn’t type anything back.

_gaffer just made us watch CRO-ENG,_ Eric writes.

Dele sends back a grimacing emoji.

_missing me?_ Dele’s next message says.

_you wish,_ Eric writes. He’s left the hotel room door open. It’s bugging him, but getting off the bed to close it would be an admission of…something. He reads back through the message thread. _When bae goes away for a day._ He scratches his chin, thinking.

_any news from physio?_ he writes.

There’s nothing from Dele for a few seconds. WhatsApp says he’s typing, then he stops – and then starts again. Eric wishes he could see his face. Dele punishes himself worse than most, when his body lets him down.

_said I need to take it easy_

_no unnecessary exercise_

He follows it up with a wry smirking face. Eric shifts restlessly against the headboard. He can hear Picks yelling angrily about whoever nicked his Beats down the corridor.

_prob good ur away for a bit,_ Dele writes.

It could mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean _anything._ It’s just – it’s just a throwaway comment. It could mean – no more back garden basketball tournaments. Or no more dog walks. Or it could mean _you’re the only one who gives me a run for my money on the training pitch._

It doesn’t mean that, though. Eric presses a hand absently against his groin, as though he’s just casually adjusting his boxers. He’s not kidding himself.  

_call that exercise?_ he types back one-handed. It feels – different. It makes him shiver slightly. His heart is in his mouth. Last night is still tender in his muscles. He tries not to think about having sex with Dele, when they’re outside the safety of his bedroom, but it’s getting harder. The planes of his back, the deep ridge of his spine, and the way his rib cage moves under Eric’s fingers. How Eric holds on so tightly to his sides, he half expects his palms to come away smeared with ink. The hotel room door is still open.

Dele sends back an angry face. _hdu,_ he writes.

Eric sends back an angel face. _better prove you can do better delstroyer,_ he types, and then pauses. He backspaces until the message space is blank again. _prove me wrong,_ he writes instead. It still looks – too serious. Or too glib – or both at once.

He frowns at his phone. Dele’s avatar taunts him, some stupid selfie of the two of them messing about in the changing room, Serge’s ear just visible on one side of the picture.

_game for a workout when I get back,_ he sends instead, feeling slightly breathless. It’s hardly top banter, but it’s just the right side of plausible deniability.

It’s half a promise, though – and they don’t deal in promises, or in futures, with this – this _thing._ That’s become an unspoken rule between them. Every time they fuck, it takes them by surprise. Every time feels like a one-off, except it never is, and somehow the next time rolls around, with almost laughable consistency, and somehow they’re still surprised, and still unable to talk about the next time out loud, or to look the fact that it’s bound to happen square in the eyes.

He should just FaceTime Dele. It would take him ten seconds to shut the door. It would be – a start. A leap. Eric’s stomach squirms involuntarily.

Of course, that’s when Stonesy wanders into the room, trailed by Walks. Eric’s fingers get into a tangle trying to quit WhatsApp and turn his phone off without looking like he’s panicking. He’s not sure it works.

“Stop wanking and come play snooker with us, ya big twat,” Stonesy says.

Eric feels his face flush again. He tries to hoist his knees up surreptitiously without Stonesy – or worse, _Walks –_ cottoning on.

“Will you _knock_?”

“Free country, innit,” Stonesy says, slapping Eric’s foot. “C’mon.”

Eric swings his legs off the bed. He’s thinking about the line shaved into the back of Dele’s skull, and the feel of soft skin under his tongue when he presses his mouth to it, and how he’d rather die than let Stonesy know what he’s thinking.

His phone beeps as they’re ambling down to the rec room. _i’ll hold you to that diet,_ it says.

Eric lags behind so the others won’t see his face, and the hope on it.


	3. Chapter 3

Eventually they get sick of Welbz following them around with his phone. Trent collars him at the breakfast buffet the morning before the Croatia match and tells him he’s found an empty conference room on the other side of the hotel.

“Not bringing your fan club?” Eric asks, wondering whether he can fit a third croissant onto his plate, and what are the chances of sneaking it past the nutritionists’ table without them spotting him.

Trent laughs. “Fan club? Na, mate, just thought I’d do the decent thing, humiliate you in private, innit.”

Eric frowns. “Cocky bastard, aren’t you?”

Trent shrugs, and grabs a kiwi from the fruit bowl.

“You missing Dele?” he asks a few hours later, when they’ve dodged the rest of the lads and installed themselves in the empty conference room. It startles Eric, though everyone’s asked him the same question, or a variation of it, and every time it’s been innocuous, and accompanied by a jokey elbow.

“M’not _Marcus,_ ” he manages, tapping the top of his kingside rook. “We’re not joined at the hip.” Dele’d say something about the places where they are joined, the points at which their bodies meet, if he were here. But he’s not.

“They’re funny,” Trent agrees amiably. He’s spending ages on his move. Eric suspects he’s humouring him, trying not to make it look too easy. Trent leans on his steepled hands and looks up at Eric.

“D’you – I know it’s just banter, but d’youse ever think –”

 _Danger,_ Eric thinks. He feels himself sit up straighter. “Ever think what?”

He knows, though, he knows where the thin ice is, even before Trent’s looked back down at the board to avoid looking at him when he says, “You know, they might be – you know, _together_ , like?”

It’s Trent asking – just wide-eyed soft-voiced Trent, with his slow frown and quick mind, Trent, who goes along with things because he’s steady and curious and comes from a big family just like Eric. Eric still feels sick.

“Dunno,” he says dully. _Keep breathing._ “Haven’t really thought about it. None of my business –”

“I don’t care either way,” Trent says hastily.

“Wasn’t saying you did. I just – like I said, none of my business. Whatever they’re up to, it’s nice to have some peace and fucking quiet ‘round here.”

Trent laughs. There’s an edge to his smile, like he might start up on it again, so Eric sacrifices his remaining bishop to distract him. Trent takes the bait; he whoops and pounces. _Checkmate._ Eric thinks it’s probably an allegory for something.

*

Voices carry on the empty night. Every whistle, every barked touchline order, every thudding, bone-trembling tackle. Eric thinks he might be able to hear his studs biting into the grass, the beat of his heart, the cold snatch of every breath, if he listens closely.

They feel small, playing to an audience of ghosts, and even giants – even _Modric –_ seem small and human without the roaring approval of the fans. Eric pants, and picks himself up, and lopes off down the pitch again, and again, like purgatory, his lungs screaming. Nothing comes to nothing. Gareth’s brow furrows deeper, and the pace stays the same, heavy and unglamorous.

Nil-nil never felt greyer. This was meant to be a glorious revenge, demons and doubters put to the sword, Modric hung out to dry, the monkey off their backs, and instead here comes the anthem quietly creeping into the stadium from the gaggle of fans on a far-off hilltop. And here they are trudging into the tunnel with nothing to show but the old headlines back again, the old chorus, _same old England._ The tang of disappointment in the air.

Eric misses Dele like a knife between the ribs.

*

Dele FaceTimes him as they’re getting on the coach.

“D’you pick that bib on purpose to clash with your face?” Dele asks before Eric’s had time to even say hello. He scowls. “Looking like a fucking bright pink _thumb_ all over my telly,” Dele continues. He’s clearly in bed, with the lights off. His phone screen casts ghoulish shadows up his face.

“Nice of you to watch,” Eric says, flopping into an empty pair of seats.

“Only cause there was nothing else on,” Dele says. He looks off to the side, as though something’s distracted him. His cheekbones are like a razor. Eric hoists his feet up onto the spare seat and hopes Gareth doesn’t do a final sweep before they set off.

“And did we impress you, sir?”

Dele sniffs. “Alright, I guess,” he says. “Bit slow, weren’t it?”

Eric shrugs. The truth hurts, and admitting when Dele’s right hurts even more.

“That our Delboy?” Walks pipes up as he drapes himself over the top of the seats. “Alright, dickhead?” he hollers, waving manically at Eric’s phone. “Put some fucking clothes on, you slag,” he says, as Dele shifts his phone and his bare chest flashes momentarily into view. Eric feels his stomach twist. The cabin lights are low; they’re all bathed in a cool navy, the Christmassy spangle of the cat’s eyes on the floor the only source of light. It’s for the best – he’s never been good at hiding his blushes.

On the screen, Dele flicks Walks a lazy middle finger. His eyes are impossibly bright; his irises look almost black in the gloom of his bedroom.

“Be civil, Del,” Eric says, and Walks gives a snort of derision. He snatches the phone out of Eric’s hand and sets off down the aisle of the coach, telling Dele to say hello to people.

“Walks, I’m telling you –” Eric starts, craning round to give Kyle a piece of his mind. “Give it here.”

“Why should you be the only one that gets to talk to him?” Walks says, waggling the phone.

“Yeah,” Stonesy pipes up, kneeling on his seat to get a better view. “Your mum never teach you how to share?”

It’s a joke. It’s just a joke. But it feels like a boot to the gut, an instinctual, bone-deep surge of anger: _mine. Not yours._ Panic comes fast on its heels – he suddenly becomes acutely, painfully aware of everything he’s got on his phone that could incriminate him. _Them_.

A camera roll – a little too full of Dele. A few too many photos of Dele, alone, off-guard, unsmiling. Maybe a couple of Dele, asleep – the ones he’s been meaning to delete, but can’t bring himself to, because of the sweep of his eyelashes, or the soft bow of his lips, or the way his skin looks in the early morning – a million stupid reasons which seem inadequate now, with Kyle a few slips of the finger away from discovering them. Or the texts that only look innocuous in isolation. Or it might be his search history that betrays him. Eric’s breath gets short – short like ninety minutes plus extra time plus the hopes of a nation.

Dele’s had enough, though. Eric can hear his voice, tinny and cross, floating down the coach, and Kyle saunters back up the aisle, bopping Jadon on the head as he goes.

“ _Fine,_ ” he says, mock-crossly, dangling the phone in front of Eric’s face. “I know when I’m not wanted, me. Go back to whispering sweet nothings with this meathead. See if I care.”

“Piss off,” Eric says, as calmly as he can, plucking the phone out of Kyle’s hand. Walks loses interest immediately, starting up on Raz who’s at least five rows further back.

Eric’s got Dele in front of him again, and he’s huddled in his own little pod – Madders is across the way listening to music with his eyes closed, looking beat, and no one else is close by – and suddenly he doesn’t know what to say.

Dele’s face stares up at him from the phone, blinking slowly.

“Long journey back to the hotel?” Dele asks.

Eric shakes his head. “Nah. S’alright.”

“Bet you wish I was there to keep you company. My sparkling wit and all that.”

Eric grins. “No way. Get a double seat to myself, this way.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Dele’s grinning too. It opens up his whole face. Eric bites his lip. He wants to be near him so badly – to touch his fingertip to Dele’s dimples, trace the glow along his cheekbones. And to be there, in bed with him, his hands wherever the fancy takes them. _Fuck,_ he thinks. _Fuck fuck fuck._

“You alright, mate?” Dele asks .

Eric forces himself to grin again. “Perfect,” he says. The coach starts to move. Dele opens his mouth as though he’s about to say something, then seems to think better of it. He keeps smiling at Eric, and Eric can think of nothing to say – all he can do is smile back, dumbly, his whole body aching from the match, and his cheeks aching most of all.

It’s like he’s spying on Dele, watching him shuffle around in bed, rearrange the duvet, scratch mutely at his collarbone, rub his nose. Like a two-way mirror, and Eric’s on the other side, grinning like a fool and trying to say what he wants to say without saying anything at all. Everything feels closer, and more secret, in the dark.

“Shouldn’t you be getting some kip?” he asks eventually. The spell’s broken – the golden chord between them, Rijeka to Elstree – and it feels almost like relief.

Dele scowls. “Spose,” he says, sulking. “Be better if -” he stops abruptly, and Eric feels his throat tighten, because he was going to say _if you were here too,_ he _knows_ it, and Dele doesn’t let on, much, that he’s into it, into _him._ Eric has to guess, to fill in the gaps himself, and sometimes only his pride stops him from getting on his knees and saying, _tell me I make you as crazy as you make me._

“Sleep tight, Del,” he whispers, with his face close to his phone, and he hears Dele breathe for a couple of seconds, hears him mumble _night, Diet,_ and then the call ends, and the rumble of the coach and Raz’s indignant squealing and the godawful Europop the driver’s piping out of his radio and all the other dull, familiar sounds that _aren’t_ Dele breathing rush in to fill the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to alarm anyone, but there is actually what could loosely be described as a bit of plot in this chapter. Hold onto your hats, folks, we're through the looking-glass now.

“Eric,” he hears Gareth’s voice behind him, and turns. Gareth’s head is poking out of his office. “A word?” he says, gentle and impassive as always.

“Course, boss,” Eric says, though his heart is sinking already. He’s had worse spells – no, he played _well,_ brimming with careful rage – but the new boys did well, too – they looked good, and fresh, and exciting, and as he sidles into Gareth’s office he’s thinking _is that it,_ just a couple of years to prove himself, and then out, replaced by quicker legs, weightier passes, stuck at Hotspur Way, or wherever he ends up, while H and Dele and Tripps trek off to St George’s every couple of months.  

“Come on, sit yourself down, son,” Gareth’s saying, and closing the door to the little office, and that’s when Eric knows this might be the end of the line – Gareth wouldn’t want anyone walking in or overhearing when he’s breaking bad news. His gentleness is crueller than poison, sometimes.

“Good week, wasn’t it?” Gareth says, settling behind his desk.

“Yeah – yeah,” Eric says cautiously. It seems a strange way to give someone the boot. The fizz of last night’s win is still in the air. “New boys did well,” he adds, because he doesn’t want to be a bad sport about it. The gaffer’s done plenty for him – not just now; with the U21s, too. The least he can do is make it easy for him to show him the door.

“Spoken to Dele much?”

Eric frowns. “Um – he’s doing okay, I think, boss. You’d have to talk to – I mean, I know he’s gutted not to –” He’s not sure what Gareth wants. The last text on Eric’s phone is innocent enough, by sheer coincidence. Nothing untoward – just Dele messing about: _shoulda been a red._

“Listen, son.” There’s something in Gareth’s voice that stops him rambling. Gareth looks down at his hands briefly, as though searching for an answer. _This is it,_ Eric thinks dully. It’s an aptly pedestrian end to his England career.

“Son,” Gareth says again, “I’m not trying to put you on the spot here. This isn’t – it’s none of my business, on a personal level, and this doesn’t have to – this doesn’t go beyond this room if you don’t want it to.” He stops for a moment. Eric feels his heartrate increase. “I just want to know you’re okay, and to let you know I want – we want – we’ll help however you want. Whichever way. Your choice.”

He looks at Eric over steepled fingers.

“Boss, I’m – I don’t –” Eric starts. It feels like he’s running out of breath. He wants to lean back, to steady himself, but the chair he’s sitting in feels too small, as though it might shatter into matchsticks under his weight.

Gareth runs a hand through his hair. “Christ, I thought I’d planned this a bit better.” He laughs ruefully. “What I’m trying to – Eric, I’m not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. I – the thing is, son – and I don’t mean to ambush you here, put you on the spot – I’ve got it on pretty good authority that you’ve been seeing a bloke. I mean – you know what I mean. That you’re – involved.”

It feels like time’s stopped. Eric’s heart seems to have plummeted into his stomach. He freezes, silent. This is worse, this is _so, so_ much worse than a swift and unsentimental farewell from the England setup. Which will likely be forthcoming, at any rate.

Gareth looks at him for a second. “Right,” he says decisively. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Boss, I –” He doesn’t know where he’s going with this. He knows he’s damned himself already. All of a sudden he’s shivering, and he can’t seem to stop. He’s been dreading this all along, a steady undercurrent of worry, since the second time, or maybe the third – whenever he realised this isn't madness, or confusion, or boredom, or curiosity: it's something deeper, and realer, and lovelier – and even though he’s been dreading it, now it’s here, it’s so much worse than he imagined.

“Shh,” the gaffer says. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. None of my business – like I said. I’m not telling you to stop. All I need to know is, are you keeping it quiet – I mean – do you want to? I’m assuming you want to, given – well. Tricky – in an ideal world – you don’t need me to tell you things still aren’t as – but you know we’ll be behind you whatever. I just mean it’s not easy.”

Eric sits in silence for a good half minute. Every thought he’s ever had is trying to cram its way back into his brain. He can barely remember Dele’s face. _Fuck, Dele,_ he thinks. The gaffer’s not stupid. Eric wishes he had Dele next to him now, fidgeting and looking bored. He feels the echo of that perfect tackle, the sweet, sweet chime of his toe nudging the ball out of play, a split-second before he and Ramos clattered to the ground, an earthquake of limbs and outrage. It feels like years ago.

“Eric?” Gareth asks quietly. The last time he heard that tone of voice, Gareth had a hand on the nape of his neck and was drawing him close, telling him how proud he was, telling him how much it meant to the country, until that was all he could hear, his heart and Gareth’s calm, soft voice, so sincere it _ached,_ and nothing at all of the triumph of the Croatian fans, nothing at all.

He tries to speak, but his throat’s gone dry. He coughs, and tries again. “It’s just – I – thing is, I haven’t – I haven’t told my mum yet.” It sounds pathetic, and small, and Eric feels like a child again, lost and limited and unable to imagine the magnitude of the future he’s created for himself. _As though there’s anything to tell._

Gareth makes an aborted, soft sound of sympathy, and looks for a moment as though he might reach across the desk to grip Eric’s arm. Eric’s glad he doesn’t. It might make him crumble. _Stupid stupid stupid._

“I just want to know if – how I can help you. Okay? You just – listen, I’m not qualified with this stuff – you know – us Brits, we don’t – but what I’m saying is, you ever want to talk, I’m here, okay? If you ever want to – if you want to talk about how you can combine this with your career and still –”

 _Still._ Eric looks down into his lap. He can’t meet the boss’s eyes. For a mad second he thinks about spilling it all out there, in the boss’s office, all over the desk, under the posters of Charlton and Shearer and Lineker, the framed shirts and medals. He can’t imagine Gareth’s face. What would make him more uncomfortable – what he and Dele get up to together, the mad, graphic details – the toe-curling, spine-tingling, _filthy_ stuff that makes Eric go red to the tips of ears to even _think_ about? Or how Dele makes him feel, how it feels safe and grounding and inevitable, the two of them together, how he’s probably in love, and probably has been for a long time, for longer than he should admit? How he can’t stop thinking about it, about _him._ And how it makes him feel sick that he’s got no idea what Dele’s thinking, or how to begin to ask.

“D’you know who –” he starts, uselessly.

“They didn’t mean it to be hostile, son – it’s not anyone who’s going to – you don’t need to worry about the papers or anything, Eric. Needed a bit of guesswork on my part, to fill in the gaps. They just saw something that might be read – a certain way. I think they thought it needed containing – monitoring, whatever. Nothing that can’t be denied, don’t you worry.”

It didn’t even occur to Eric – to wonder who’d sold him out, or how, or why. He’s too busy thinking about how good it was, how perfect and secret and safe, and how it’s ruined now, before it’s really begun. It comes as a mild surprise to realise he’s been thinking of it as a beginning.

“No, I meant –” He knows he’s going pink. Dele tells him every time he does, and takes joy in it, and in pressing his fingertips to Eric’s cheeks, whenever they’re alone and he’s blushing. He’s mumbling now, but the office is quiet, and Gareth’s leaning across his desk so he can hear properly. “I meant – d’you know who it is – you know – who I’ve been –”

Gareth pauses, and leans back in his chair. Eric dares to raise his eyes. The gaffer’s face is filled with something approaching pity. “Eric,” he says softly. “I’ve got eyes in my head.” Eric’s heart plummets, and his misery must show on his face, or in the deflated line of his shoulders, because Gareth reaches a hand across the desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it. But I think – listen, I wanted to wait til now so I could suggest – well, I don’t think it’d be a bad idea for you two to have a bit of a chat. Think about – you know. What’s next.”

He’s still not said Dele’s name. Eric rubs his forearms. The shivering’s subsided, but he still feels like he might vomit if he opens his mouth

“Go home,” Gareth says, with a note of finality. “Get some rest. You did a good job this week. Talk – talk to him, okay? Talk it out. Maybe Pochettino –”

A look of blind panic must flash across his face, because Gareth stops, and laughs. “Okay, don’t talk to Pochettino yet. Just – you’re a bright lad. You’re a thoughtful lad. You – deserve to be happy, okay? And there’s a lot of ways you can make that happen.”

Eric nods mutely. He rushes to his feet, pushing the chair hastily to one side. He feels like he’s made of rusty gears and bent spokes; nothing works properly. Just a door between him and the corridor where, minutes ago, he was nattering with Ross and thinking about the journey home, his secret locked up safe.

“Thanks, boss,” he says tightly, although he’s not sure what he’s thanking him for right now, with his heartrate through the roof and his career on a knife-edge.

“I’m proud of you, Eric,” Gareth says, and that’s somehow the worst thing of all. Eric doesn’t know what to say. He ducks his head and makes his escape before the awkwardness fills up the room. The panic’s threatening to overwhelm him.

Jadon and Ben are loitering outside, fiddling with their phones. They look wary when they see him, and Eric knows they’re thinking what he was thinking when the boss first collared him – _can’t be good news_. He doesn’t blame them.

“Nice one, lads,” Eric says, cuffing each of them on the shoulder. He can barely see. “See you for the next one, yeah?”

He doesn’t stick around to hear their answer.


	5. Chapter 5

Eric feels like he’s been up for days. The house is dark and quiet when he lets himself in. He leaves his suitcase in the hall and throws his boots down next to it, and stands in the gloom for a few seconds, breathing heavily. It doesn’t feel like home. It smells of nothing, and the silence is like a tomb. He calls Dele’s name up the stairs, and nothing comes back.

He feels his chest tighten. He’d known – he kept telling himself all the way from St George’s Park – he’d known Dele wouldn’t be in the house. That’s not what they’re like. The emptiness is infectious, though.

He and H were quiet on the way back, and H punched him on the shoulder, said, _see you Monday,_ because some things don’t change, blessedly, even when the bottom’s fallen out of the world – like H, with his straightforward, sensible, quiet modes of operation, _football_ or _family._

Eric heads for the kitchen in search of tea. His feet feel heavy. He replays Gareth’s stumbling, apologetic speech, again and again, just in case the wound’s not deep enough yet. It was secret, and now it’s not; it was precious, and now it’s cheapened. That’s the long and short of it.

There’s a mug and a bowl upside down on the draining board. He knows it wasn’t Elsa – she only comes once a fortnight, and he knew he was going to be away for nearly a week, so he gave her the day off. Eric feels his mouth twitch, despite himself, despite the exhaustion ground into his bones. It’s such a little thing – but he lets himself wallow in the warm thought of Dele standing at the sink in his kitchen, carefully washing the mug and the bowl and the spoon, stacking them neatly to drip dry, before letting himself out of the house.

His phone beeps.

_Back yet?_

Eric pauses. It’s ruined, and Dele doesn’t even know. Dele might not even think there’s something there to ruin.

 _5 mins ago,_ he types. What next? _Need to talk to you,_ he writes – then deletes it without sending. _Miss me?_ Too flippant. Too much like they’re still the only ones in on the joke.

He takes a deep breath. His eyes keep flicking to the mug and the bowl, and the ghost-shape where Dele stood, spending a few moments tidying up Eric’s house so it’d be neat when he got back from internationals.  

_You at home?_

Dele sends back the smiling devil emoji. Eric growls in frustration.

 _Can I come over?_ he texts, even though he hasn’t got a plan, or anything approaching one.

Dele sends a thumbs up.

The streets are quiet. On 5 Live, they’re talking about rugby. Eric zones in and out of the conversation, drumming the steering wheel, thinking about Gareth, his long face heavy with the guilt of having to drag it all out into the light. A flash of rage runs through him – Gareth _didn’t_ have to. He could have left well enough alone. They could have carried on – for who knows how long. Eric nearly misses his turning.

Dele opens the door dressed in pyjama bottoms Eric’s not seen before. There’s a heartbeat – a suspended, perfect moment – when Eric forgets, forgets Gareth knows, forgets the whole thing’s fucked – and all he can think is _wow,_ because Dele’s wreathed in light, and Eric’s missed his larch limbs and the white flash of his smile, and he’s been looking at Dele for years, but now he’s really _seeing_ him.

“Alright, mate,” Dele says, and before Eric can go through a whole internal crisis of wondering whether they kiss hello now – whether that’s part of the routine, Dele’s stuck his hand out and careened straight into their handshake. It feels like he’s slapped him across the face.

“Thought you’d be too knackered to come over,” Dele says over his shoulder as he traipses back into the house. He looks tired, in a different way to the last time Eric saw him in the flesh. A dull and mopey way; it’s like not playing rubs the sheen off him. Eric’s palms prickle. Dele in a bad mood is never an enjoyable prospect.

He doesn’t offer him a drink, just heads straight into the lounge and flops onto the sofa. There’s a plate on the coffee table, scattered with neatly nibbled pizza crusts. Eric pretends to ignore it as he settles down on the sofa next to Dele. 

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Dele says, because Eric’s no good at fooling him. “Ain’t been eating crap the _whole_ time you were away. Just – couldn’t be fucked cooking tonight.”

Eric barely hears him. Dele’s got a long sleeved top on, and he keeps pulling the sleeves down over his fists, and Eric wants to prise his fingers free, put them in his mouth, suck on them until he forgets the look on Gareth’s face, saying _you deserve to be happy._

“Walks says to say you owe him fifty quid,” Eric says, to put off the moment when he ruins everything.

Dele frowns. “Where’s he got that from?”

Eric shrugs. It’s part of why he loves this – loves Dele – that they can have the same dull, pedestrian conversations they’ve always had, and then head upstairs to take each other’s bodies apart. Everything’s changed, and nothing at all. And Gareth had to go and ruin it. “Ask him. Something about something he snuck into an interview. Wasn’t really listening.”

Dele shifts on the sofa. It brings them closer, thigh to thigh, which might have been the intended effect, or might not. Eric wonders whether it was something that simple, that innocent – the casual press of two bodies against each other, a little too comfortable in the way they overlap – that gave them away, in the end.

“Saw that challenge,” Dele says casually.

Eric dredges up the memory – a lifetime ago, when all he had to worry about was his place in the England squad, and not about his career, or Dele’s. “Alright, wasn’t it?” Even under the fear, he manages a proud smile, a little thrill.  

Dele grins. “Meant what I said,” he says. “Straight red.”

Eric nudges him, laughing. He’s clinging onto it for dear life – the feeling of being in each other’s space, unthinkingly, unapologetically. He’s taken it so wastefully, so wilfully for granted. Everything’s going to have to change, from now on. “Played the ball, ref,” he says quietly, letting himself curl closer into Dele’s body.

Dele presses back. “Dangerous play,” he says, and his fingers are tracing up and down Eric’s thigh, and he’s not looking at Eric; they’re both looking at his fingers, and maybe his heart’s thudding just as hard as Eric’s, though it’s difficult to tell.

“Del,” Eric says, and he means _stop –_ he means _I have to tell you something,_ but Dele turns his head and kisses him in one smooth swift moment. All Eric can do is kiss him back. He hears himself sigh, as though all his excuses are evaporating. Every time feels like this – like he’s tried to reject gravity, and he should have known better than to think it wouldn’t happen again. Dele’s kissing him slowly – like he wants to kiss him forever, and is pacing himself.

Eric pulls back, because he hasn’t got forever – and it won’t get any easier to do this, especially with Dele’s fingertips fluttering against his neck.

“Del,” Eric says, and his voice breaks on the word. “The boss –” he starts again, and feels his throat close up. He coughs awkwardly. “I – Del – I dunno, he knows – he’s found out we’re – you know –” he waves a hand vaguely between them. It doesn’t mean much, but then again, Dele’s got his bare toes hooked under Eric’s thigh like it’s where they belong, and Eric knows what Dele’s face looks like when he comes, so maybe everything is far too full of meaning, these days.

Dele doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at his feet, and where they’re buried under Eric’s leg, his expression blank.

“It’s not – he was really nice about it,” Eric says dumbly, like that makes it all okay. “I just – he said I should talk to you.”

Dele still doesn’t say anything. His face takes on a shuttered look. Eric’s torn between wanting him to look up, to look him in the eye, so he can access the tiniest sliver of what he’s thinking – and wanting to avoid his gaze forever, so they can keep pretending this isn’t happening, and nothing’s changed.

Finally, Dele says, in a tight, curt voice, “When did he – when did he tell you? You know. That he knows.”

Eric swallows. “This afternoon. Before – it was just as I was waiting for H.” He can almost hear Dele counting up the hours in his head – the hours Eric’s kept him in the dark.

“Wonder how long he’s known,” Dele says, dully, as though he doesn’t care at all, as though it’s not a hand grenade in the middle of their lives.

“Dunno,” Eric says. He didn’t think to wonder, or to ask.

Dele falls silent again, playing with the fraying hem of his sleeve. He’s still refusing to meet Eric’s eyes. It feels worse than sitting in front of Gareth, separated only by a desk and a generation, feeling like he was withering from the inside. Now he’s the one in charge – and he has no idea what to do.

“We can –” Eric swallows. “Maybe it would just be easier if we – stopped. You know?”

Dele pulls a face. He pulls it a lot – a cross between a question mark and a scowl – and it’s sometimes hard to tell where Dele – his best mate, the training ground clown, the bright young thing – ends, and Dele – who twitches in his sleep, and knows what Eric’s body tastes like, and makes his breath catch – begins.

“Might be – maybe it’d be for the best,” Eric says. It doesn’t wipe the mulish look off Dele’s face. It doesn’t make Eric feel better, either. The words sound cruel, and hollow, and nothing at all like what he wants to say.

 “Whatever,” Dele says, and Eric knows him well enough to know he’s trying for nonchalant. It comes out bitter instead. They were kissing less than five minutes ago, and Dele had no idea Eric was about to wreck everything.

“Do you want to?” Eric blurts. “Stop, I mean.”

Dele’s mouth goes thin. “Do we have to talk about it?” he says, getting up abruptly. He grabs the plate of pizza crusts. He looks young, suddenly, younger than he was when Eric first met him, defiant and tongue-tied and brimming with energy and uncertainty, here, wearing pyjama bottoms with little cartoon dogs on them, the tattoos creeping up his arms like mutant ivy.

Eric gets up too, following him back through the house to the kitchen. “We –” The end of the sentence abandons him.

Dele makes a big show of tidying up. Crusts in the bin. He runs a whole bowl of hot water just for the plate, puts way too much Fairy liquid in it, maybe because he’s nervous and distracted and thinking about how his career might be fucked, and maybe because he hasn’t got a clue how to wash up.

“We can’t just – we can’t ignore it,” Eric says, leaning on the counter behind him. Dele’s shoulders tighten, he scrubs the plate as though it’s caked with burnt-on food, and not just a little crumby.

“None of Gareth’s business, is it,” he says. Eric can barely hear him above the running water.

“Yeah, I know,” Eric says. “He didn’t want to – he _said_ it wasn’t his business, except – you know, he just wanted to make sure –”

“What, make sure we don’t fuck up all the feelgood three lions crap?”

“That’s not fair, Del,” Eric says.

“You saying that’s not what he cares about – the press?” Dele turns round. His hands are dripping. He’s looking at Eric, properly, for the first time since Eric dropped his bombshell.

“No, he –” Eric stops. He leans back against the stove, a week’s worth of exhaustion pulling at his legs. “He does care, you know – he doesn’t want us to be – he _said_ he didn’t care on a personal level – _and_ he said he wants to be guided by us. What we want, you know.”

Dele doesn’t say anything.

“Told him I’d talk to you,” Eric says.

“Why didn’t you just tell him he’s got it all wrong?”

Eric frowns. “Dunno, he – it wasn’t really something – he put me on the spot a bit. Dunno, guess he just – worked it out from the look on my face.” He pauses, and takes a deep breath before continuing. The dials of the stove are digging into his back. “He said – I think he guessed from, you know, how I am around you.”

“Aw, you into me, Diet?” Dele says, a little nastily. Eric could shake him, even though he knows it’s just a defence mechanism. Sarcasm’s easier than sincerity; brusque nonchalance is easier than the earnest, simple truth.

Eric presses his lips together to stop himself snapping. “Be _serious,_ Dele,” he hisses finally.

Dele looks cowed; it’s an odd and awkward look on him. “Fine,” he mutters to his feet. “D' _you_ want to stop?”

Eric takes a deep breath. It feels like someone’s punching him repeatedly in the sternum. Dele’s in front of him, on the brink of admitting this thing has legs, admitting it’s more than just a few inexpert handjobs between mates, a handful of kisses, a few nights keeping each other awake with their fidgeting. Dele’s maybe saying it’s more, and Eric’s been hoping for this for – weeks, months. It should be a lightning bolt of joy, and instead he feels sick, and heavy with dread.

“I don’t –” he feels his body gearing up to protect himself, feels the excuses and caveats and exit strategies queuing up in his throat – and all of a sudden he deflates. The worst’s done – or nearly the worst. Why keep fronting? “I don’t want to stop,” he says flatly. “This is – I dunno, I think I might have been wanting this for a long time now. Dunno. Not saying – you don’t have to – just, I don’t want to stop. Okay.”

Dele’s still staring at his feet. “Me either,” he mumbles finally. He looks up, and manages a wan, sheepish smile.

Eric smiles back. There’s a weird, fuzzy kind of energy in the kitchen. Eric’s brain spits out something long-buried from school, something about how everything’s made up of atoms or electrons or something, how they’re always vibrating, how they’re all made up of the same _stuff,_ down at the particle level. Dele’s got his arms folded across his chest like a shield. His legs go on for miles.

“Okay,” Eric says, running a hand over his skull. He feels shaky. “Fuck, I’m knackered, mate.” He knows when to stop pushing. “Sort out the rest later, yeah?”

Dele nods.

“Okay,” Eric says, if only to reassure himself. “Okay.”

“You –” Dele says suddenly, pushing himself off the counter. “You staying here tonight?” His cheeks are flushed. This isn’t how they do things usually – it comes out of nowhere, usually, wordlessly, and before they know it it’s early morning and their mouths and muscles hurt and they’re both rumpled and faintly surprised to find themselves back here. Only this time, for the first time, Dele’s asking him to stay, looking earnest and like he might punch Eric if he laughs at him.

Eric nods so hard his teeth rattle. “That okay?”

“Wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t, would I?”

It’s as good as he’s going to get, he knows. His stomach still feels like someone’s tied a knot in it as he follows Dele out of the kitchen and up the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

What’s weird is how easy it is to pretend. He and Dele drive to training in separate cars, and kick each other’s water bottles across the changing room, and howl at Toby when he gets megged, and sometimes they sit next to each other at lunch, and sometimes they don’t, and it’s so, so easy to pretend. Dele gets over his hamstring, comes back to full training, and they wander round the shower block with towels slung low across their hips, and it’s no problem at all, somehow, keeping their eyes off each other.

Eric scrolls through his contacts three, four times a day, his thumb hovering over ‘Mr Southgate.’ Scrolls past. Nothing to say. They’ve decided, without deciding. Keep pretending. Pretend everything’s normal, pretend they never had that conversation, pretend they’re not pretending. Say nothing – least of all to each other.

Eric lets Dele fuck him, and it’s how he thought it would be, except it’s better, and rougher, and more human, and sometimes what they say in songs about seeing stars is true. It feels like the most intimate thing he’s ever done, it feels like Dele’s unravelled his spine, and yet the secret’s still heavy between them, the silence, this thing they’re not talking about, the monstrous lurking weight of what’ll happen when it gets out.

It makes no sense, that it’s not written all over his face. The thought of it fills up every waking moment, and some of the sleeping moments, too – he can’t stop thinking about it, how his thighs wouldn’t stop trembling, the first time, and how Dele’s hands were shaking, too, and how he looked so serious, frowning down at him, looking like the world was about to end, looking so unlike himself that Eric had no choice but to pull him down by the neck and kiss him until he relaxed, until they were both laughing and panting and stupid and short of breath and roughly halfway to heaven. And somehow people can’t see that on his face, or in the line of his shoulders, which _must_ be taller and bolder and smugger. It’s easy to pretend, and that’s what’s weird.

*

It’s getting light outside, and Dele’s curled on his side next to him, and the inches between them are disappearing, which is a start, even if they’re still working out how to occupy the same space. Eric blinks. There’s something heavy on his feet. He flexes his toes. The weight wriggles.

It’s still early; his mind’s creaking into action. He’s still half-dreaming, still wandering through the only dream he ever remembers, the one where he’s playing barefoot, and the waking world feels unreal, and veiled. He half-hears a voice calling Dele’s name – it could be in the dream; it has that ghostly, far-off timbre – and then the voice gets closer, and louder, and realer, and the weight on Eric’s feet shifts again.

The bedroom door swings open.

“Soz, Del, I thought I’d kept him in the kitch –”

Harry stops. “ _Shit,_ ” he says quietly. On the bed, Hugo bounds in an excited circle.

Eric drags himself into a sitting position. It jostles Dele – Eric knows how his body wakes, now; it’s like a plant unfurling into sunlight, and he knows every beat. He’s got twenty seconds, maybe.

“Alright, mate,” he says. His voice cracks.

“Alright,” Harry says, and reaches out a fist. Eric cranes across to bump his against it. The stretch of his body drags the blankets further off Dele’s body. Dele grumbles sleepily.

“Sorry, man,” Harry says in a tone too brittle to be quite natural. “Meant to keep him – thought I’d locked him in the kitchen. Fuckin’ – shoulda called the little bastard Houdini. Turn your back for a split second and – he’s off.” He grabs Hugo from the bed and tucks him against his chest. A squirming, furry shield.

“Na, s’alright,” Eric says, and it sounds like someone else is talking. “Need to get up anyway. Training at nine.” His mind’s fizzing. He’s thinking about how he’s naked under the blankets, and he’s desperately trying to remember whether Dele got out of bed to put the condom in the bin or whether he just chucked it on the floor, even though he knows it pisses Eric off, and Hugo’s going to start barking any moment now, and then Dele’ll be awake, and that’ll be another bit of the secret that’s crumbled away.

“Alright,” Harry says again. He’s bright red. “Alright – sorry, mate. Just – you want some coffee? Put some on for me and Del – probably enough for – if you want some.”

Eric nods. “Sounds good. Be down in – give us a couple of –”

Harry nods back, still looking dazed and mortified. He stumbles as he leaves the room, and Eric hears Hugo bark halfway down the stairs. Eric feels hungover, though he’s not touched alcohol for days.

“Wsssgoinon?” Dele slurs. He rolls onto his back and looks up at Eric, his pupils like quarries.

“Did you know your brother was coming?” Eric asks.

“Hmm?” Dele says. He blinks slowly.

“Did you know Harry was coming back this morning?”  

Dele rolls onto his other side, and presses his face against Eric’s hip. “Is it Wednesday already? Shit. Forgot.” He flops his arm across Eric’s pelvis and closes his eyes again.

“Oi,” Eric says, jostling him. “He just came in here. So – stop sleeping. Probably better do some quick thinking.”

Dele lifts his head and looks up at Eric. “He came in?”

“Is there nothing you won’t sleep through? Yeah, Hugo was racing about the place. Harry came in after him.”

Dele pulls himself upright, and runs a hand raggedly over his face. “Shit.”

Eric nods. “Yeah, shit.” He swings his legs out of bed while Dele’s still putting it all together. He scrabbles among the jumble of clothes for his boxers – and finds the answer to his question. “Mate, that’s fucking gross,” he says, picking up the johnny with this thumb and finger and brandishing it gingerly in Dele’s direction.

Dele shrugs. “Did Harry look bothered?” he yells while Eric’s in the en suite getting rid of the evidence.

Eric thinks about it. “He – don’t think it was really what he was expecting, you know.” He catches sight of his reflection in the mirror above the sink. There are bruises in the shape of fingerprints in the flesh of his shoulder. Harry must have clocked them. The queasy feeling comes back.

Dele stumbles into the bathroom behind him, stark naked.

“He’s safe, though,” he says, and starts taking a leak as though Eric’s not there, as though his brother didn’t just walk in on them in bed together. “He won’t be fussed.”

“Yeah, I know, but –” Eric stops.

“Stop worrying,” Dele says, reaching for his toothbrush. Dele seems young, sometimes, with his scrappy, loping run and his boyish shriek of a laugh – and other times he seems old enough, tough enough, ice-cool enough to cope with anything, like he could fix any problem with a twitch of his eyebrows. Despite himself, Eric feels calmer – maybe it’s because he’s still half asleep, or because sirens didn’t suddenly go off when Harry burst in, or because he and Dele are moving sleepily around each other in the bathroom like they’ve been doing this forever, like they’ve forgotten what personal space is, like all their mornings have already been planned out, for as long as the future might last.

“Pass us the toothpaste, Dele,” Eric says, because that’s good enough, and pedestrian enough, and because Dele’s got his mouth full of toothpaste, and if Eric’s going to tell him he loves him, he wants Dele to have the chance to say it back.


	7. Chapter 7

Eric’s in the car with the engine running, waiting for the frost to clear from the windscreen. He claps his hands together to get some warmth into them. Still dark; winter descending fast, snood weather, finally. Tuesday – fish pie day in the canteen. The passenger side door opens. Eric startles.

“Del, what –” he says, bewildered, as Dele hops onto the passenger seat and reaches for his seatbelt.

“I’m sick of driving in,” Dele says as though it’s simple. He beams. “Better for the environment, innit.”

Eric doesn’t smile. Sometimes it feels like Dele holds all the cards, and he’s doing some weird sleight of hand thing that Eric can only marvel at. He kissed Dele goodbye in the kitchen five minutes ago, like sealing an envelope, to be opened again at the end of the day. A necessary ritual to mark the transition from one life – the one where they share a bed more nights than not, now - to the other, the one where they run hard, and work on positioning, and passing, and tracking back, and clobber the others at Uno, and mug Coco off, and make the kitman’s life hell, and dare, and do. A kiss – that was that, or meant to be.

“I thought – I thought we said we were going to keep turning up at training separately,” he says gingerly. He pretends to be adjusting the heater, so he won’t have to look at Dele.

“It’s stupid,” Dele says. “No one gives a shit how we get to training.”

Eric puts his hands on the wheel and pauses. He feels like he’s always buying himself time, with Dele.

“Come on, Diet, chop chop,” Dele says, pulling a knee up onto the seat. “I’m not paying fines because you drive like a granny.”

Eric adjusts his rear view mirror, even though it was already perfect, and pushes the ignition.

Eric drives, and Dele fidgets – of course he does – popping the glove box open and clicking it closed, over and over, and Eric doesn’t know whether he’s trying to get a rise out of him, or whether he’s nervous too, whether he’s thinking about who’ll be pulling into the carpark at the same time as them. Best case scenarios, worst case scenarios.

Dele switches the radio on, pulls a face at 5 Live, and scrolls through until he finds Radio 1.

“Come on, Carpool Karaoke,” he says, putting a hand on Eric’s thigh. Eric glances at him; he’s grinning again.

“Stop breaking my car,” he says lightly.

“Doing you a favour, mate. Embarrassed to be seen in this pile of shite.”

“You can drive tomorrow, then,” Eric says, which is as close as he can manage to agreeing that maybe they can rewrite this rule, for the time being. If Dele insists.  

“I’m not your chauffeur, Eric Dier.” He tightens his grip on Eric’s thigh and laughs.

 They’re in Enfield now, slipping through the jumble of lawns and wheely bins and corner shops and traffic lights and concrete. Half a home – more of a home than he ever expected, back in 2014, back when he was slighter and shyer and still wrestling with his own Englishness, back before he knew Dele.

“Del – what are we gonna say if – say we run into Poch or H or someone in the carpark? Are we gonna –?”

Dele pulls his hand away, and curls into himself, playing with the strings of his hoodie. His head’s bowed, and Eric can’t see his face under his cap.

“Dunno,” he says mulishly. “Just say I was at yours last night. Not a big deal.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Same. I dunno.”

They’re a few minutes away from Hotspur Way. Not long to iron this out. “They’re not idiots, Del.”

“Debatable.”

Eric laughs weakly. “Yeah, but it’s – Del, come _on,_ I know we don’t really – I know you don’t want to talk about it, but – I’m sick of people accidentally _finding out._ Don’t even know what they’re finding out. Y’know.”

“What you mean, you _don’t know what they’re finding out?_ ” Dele’s tone’s gone acidic.

Eric keeps his eyes on the road. “I mean – are they finding out that we’re – you know. _Fucking._ Or – fuck, I didn’t mean to make this into a whole _thing,_ we’re nearly there. I mean – are they finding out that we’re together. I dunno. Like – if someone asks me, _why is Dele at yours every night,_ do I say ‘cause we’re playing FIFA, or do I say ‘cause we shag sometimes, or do I say ‘cause we’re – I dunno, a _thing_?”

Dele is silent. He’s staring out of the window. “Can’t you just – can’t we just tell them to fuck off?” He sounds like a kid again, selfish and impatient and incapable of comprehending why things aren’t going the way he wants.

“You’re gonna tell the boss to fuck off? Or H?”

“I just mean – lie, you know.”

“Lie. Right.” He can’t look at Dele. His heart’s thudding, and it feels like a bag of cement.

“Eric, come _on,_ I don’t – it’s nobody’s business, is it. Why does it have to be a whole, like, _issue?_ ”

_Because I want everyone to know how I feel about you._ The thought barrels into his mind without his asking it to, and it’s horrible and sincere and gut-wrenching, and it makes perfect sense. The bag of cement flops miserably.

“Well, too late now,” he says curtly, as they pull into the carpark. “Better practice that lying in case we run into Hugo or Serge or whoever.”

Dele squeezes his knee again once Eric’s pulled into his usual space. “Stop frowning,” he says. “You look too fit when you’re grumpy. Gotta concentrate today, can’t have you being all –” he pulls a ridiculous grimacing face which Eric hopes bears no resemblance to his own.

Eric feels himself grin despite himself. “We’re talking about this later,” he warns half-heartedly.

“Whatever, dad,” Dele says, and he’s out of the car and halfway to the players’ entrance before Eric can collect his thoughts. There’s no one else in sight. It feels like a temporary stay of execution at best.


	8. Chapter 8

“Do us a favour, give these to Dan?” Eric calls, chucking his boots on top of Dele’s suitcase where it’s propped in the hall. They’re meant to be at St George’s Park for midday, and they’re late, again. He pulls a hoodie on and sticks his head into the lounge. Dele’s packing his Switch. “Did you hear me? Can you take my boots?”

Dele looks round. “Who died and made you king?”

“Left my passport at mine. Gonna have to go get it. D’you mind?”

“So disorganised, you are,” Dele says disapprovingly, even as he’s scrabbling under the television for an adaptor or a charger or god knows what.

“Thanks, babe,” Eric says; it’s meant to be sarcastic, the endearment, but it fits in his mouth like it’s always been there, and Dele goes a little pink and sticks his middle finger up at him in a futile attempt to hide it.

“You owe me one, Dier,” he says. It’s a thrill to see him flustered. Eric grins and heads for the door. The summer rhythm is back, the pulse of Russia, the sleepless feeling of being on the precious, crystal edge of something. It’s a nice feeling – Eric’s looking forward to seeing the lads, to his now-familiar room at St George’s, to the deepening cold of the winter and to their shouts cutting through it. Unfinished business, ready to be finished. Confidence mounting; his body, which he knows better, closer, differently now, coursing with power and with revenge. And Dele there with him, this time, as he should be.

*

Eric knows Gareth’s trying to get him alone. He feels a little like a gazelle in an Attenborough documentary, living on borrowed time before the predator picks him off from the fringes of the herd. Gareth keeps shooting him meaningful glances, and Eric keeps looking steadily away. He’s getting good at not talking about things. Hanging out with Dele will do that to a person.

Gareth manages it eventually, though, sneaking up on him and Dele as they’re clattering up the steps to the pitch, the day before the game against the States.

“Alright, lads?” he asks, slapping Eric on the shoulder, and Eric curses himself for letting his guard down, and Dele for taking so long adjusting the tongue of his boots, and himself again for being daft enough to wait for him, and Rubes for being just far enough ahead of them on the path to make this whole well-meaning, excruciating ambush possible.

“Alright, boss,” Dele says, as warily as Eric feels.

“You two sorted yourselves out?” Gareth asks, with significantly less preamble than last time he accosted Eric. He can feel Dele next to him, strung tight, ready for his studs to hit grass, ready to bolt.

“Yeah, we’re okay, aren’t we, Del?” he says quietly, willing Dele to look at him.

Dele scrunches up his nose. “Yeah,” he says casually. “We’re good. Just, y’know, keeping our heads down. You know.”

“Well,” Gareth says. “You know where I am. And I wanted to say –” he stops, Eric stops, too, and Dele looks like he wants to skip after Rubes, get running, get avoiding, but he slows as well, and folds his arms, waiting for the gaffer to finish.

Gareth clears his throat. “Listen, boys, I won’t harp on. I just wanted to say – I think you’re both fantastic young lads, and I think you’re very good for each other. As people, I mean. That’s something separate to the football pitch. I wish we worked in a profession – you don’t need me to tell you I wish it were easier for - for members of the LGBT community to, well, to be who they are in public in this game. But I hope you can be happy, even without that. Okay? And you know where I am. Okay?” He gives them both what Eric’s mum would call a Look, and strides off after Rubes before the awkwardness can escalate even further.

Dele laughs nervously.

“What?” Eric says sharply, even though he’s still thinking about Dele saying, _yeah, we’re good,_ like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“I was just –” he laughs again. “Imagine – Big Sam, or – fuck, imagine talking to _Woy –_ ”

Eric has to laugh at that. “Brave new world,” he says, and hooks his arm round Dele’s neck as they lope towards the pitch.

*

Wazza makes them all aware of their own mortality, in good ways, and bad. They might become legends themselves, one day – H, at least, if no one else – but eventually their joints will begin to creak, and the burnish will fade, and they will become the old guard, without realising it, and if the FA’s feeling mawkish maybe they’ll get wheeled out for one last hurrah, before everything moves inexorably on. It’s hard not to feel like the clock’s already winding down, with Jadon and Trent and Lew and the rest of them nipping at their heels, full of fire.

The game against the USA feels like a carnival and a funeral spliced together. A weird, lopsided mix of sentiment and routine. They’re raring for it after days practising short corners at St George’s. Wembley is a riot of red and white – it’s unrecognisable from league weekends. Gareth puts a hand on his neck as he’s waiting to come on.

“Keep ‘em steady, Eric,” he says. “Two nil. We’ve got this. No heroics, okay? Keep ‘em tight.”

The board goes up. Next to him, Hendo does a few standing jumps. Ben jogs over to the touchline; Dele takes his time.

“Nice one, smash it,” Ben says, slapping his palms. Eric hears the gaffer tell him how proud he is as he sprints past them onto the pitch. The announcer’s voice echoes round Wembley, _substitution for England, number twenty-two, Eric Dier._

“Bout time you earned your paycheck,” Dele says under his breath as they pass each other, because he knows Eric can’t swear at him or stop and mug him off, not with the cameras watching and the States waiting to have a few more strips torn off them. Eric ignores him. He puts on another burst of pace, and starts yelling instructions at Cal.

*

The dust’s settling, and Wazza’s in the past, and they’re back at St George’s, trying not to feel nervous every time they think about Croatia. Eric’s halfway through his pesto chicken when Jesse and Rash join him, squabbling.

“Alright?” he asks. Jesse barely pauses to throw him a casual _y’okay mate_ before continuing to harangue Marcus. Eric keeps eating. The ruckus is comforting in its familiarity. Eric knows how it’ll go: Jesse’ll get progressively more high-pitched as he expresses incredulity at whatever perfectly reasonable opinion Marcus has dared to air this time, and Marcus will snort with laughter and pretend to be outraged, and Jesse will occasionally turn to Eric for backup he knows full well won’t be forthcoming, and Marcus will keep up his well-worn shy, bashful routine, until Jesse gives in and bursts out laughing, too. It’s easy enough to tune out their nonsense and just _think._

He studies his reflection in the chrome pepper pot as he eats. He’s sick of pesto chicken. Dele’s on the other side of the canteen, grinning at Raz and making quick work of his salmon en croute. Eric knows because his stupid, treacherous eyes keep flicking in that direction. He glances at Gareth, who’s sat alone, a pen in one hand, a sandwich in the other, occasionally scribbling on a notepad.

Eric thinks about their conversation with the boss, about Dele saying _yeah, we’re good,_ and hastily shovels in another mouthful of new potato to stifle the mad smile that’s about to split his face in two. And then he thinks about Gareth saying _members of the LGBT community,_ in the measured voice of someone who’s had to sit through endless diversity training videos. Eric chews slowly, thinking. His reflection in the pepper pot is stretched and grotesque.

His neck aches with the effort of not looking at Dele. Dele, who was perched on the bathroom counter in Eric’s room early that morning, swinging his legs and smirking and saying _I’ll talk to you however I like, don’t care how many people are watching,_ just begging to have the grin kissed off his face. It’s not that Eric’s – scared, or anything. He’s not one of those _I-don’t-believe-in-labels_ wankers, either. It’s just –

Eric pushes his broccoli around and scowls at no one in particular. He’s had enough of fractured identities. Pushed and pulled between this and that. Portuguese, English, something in between. Defender, midfielder, _cultured, versatile, utility man,_ _overrated wanker_. Sometimes a footballer, a superstar, saviour of a nation, his likeness painted across city skylines, and sometimes just a little brother, trying not to be too brilliant, too rich, trying to be anything but special, or different. All of that wrapped up in one life, and at the same time always a cruciate ligament, a leg break, a shattered metatarsal away from being _nothing_. It’s exhausting. His life lined up into what he is and what he isn’t, and nothing ever quite fits. Maybe that’s what everyone feels like, like they should be able to fit into neat boxes, but don’t, or don’t want to. _Members of the LGBT community,_ Gareth’s voice says solemnly in his head again. Eric swallows the last dry, cardboard mouthful of chicken.

He’s not an idiot, and he’s not a coward. He’s not going to start claiming Dele’s the only guy who’s ever made his dick twitch. It’s just – Dele’s the only one he couldn’t brush aside. Every day, years of it, of _him,_ everywhere, impossible to ignore, the arch of his eyebrow and the swoop of his neck. How his underarmour clung to him and how he shrieked with laughter at Eric’s jokes, and seemed always to be near him, with his eyes and his hands all over him, and how every childish, daredevil inch of him seemed to scream out _look at me, look look look._ That was the end of it – or the beginning, depending on how you look at it – for Eric. How underneath everything, under every jagged enchanting piece of Dele – the bravado, the spite, the swagger, the fair pretence at carelessness – there was a vein of vulnerability, poorly hidden, there in the softness of his face while he slept, or the brief, wounded flashes of rage when the subject of his family came up. All of it; he’s in love with it all. Eric wonders if there's a word for that.

He must be staring blankly into space, because Jesse waves a hand in front of his face. “Whatcha daydreaming about?” he says, only half interested. Marcus zips his hoodie up to his chin and looks quietly at Eric.

_Oh, just thinking about my bisexual awakening,_ Eric thinks to himself. It doesn’t feel half as earth-shattering as he was expecting.

“Thinking about you giving me your chips,” he says, reaching across the table. Jesse scowls and snatches his plate out of reach.

“Tsch,” he hisses, slapping at Eric’s hand. “Get your own.”

“F’you stopped gassing for one minute you wouldn’t take ages eating, and then you wouldn’t get your chips stole,” Marcus points out reasonably.

“Shurrup, Beans,” Jesse says, and punches him on the arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to me for resisting the urge to turn this chapter into a lengthy ode to Eric Dier's Very Erotic Beard. Also, Eric's views on labels do not necessarily reflect my own. Eric's views on Jesse Lingard and his nonsense, however, very much do.


	9. Chapter 9

The party after they beat Croatia lasts all the way back to St George’s Park. They spill off the coach still high on the win, and it’s clear no-one’s going to bed for hours yet, so in a precious quiet moment after Winksy’s meandered off to find someone else to beam at, Eric steps out for a minute, away from the hectic hum of their victory, and slips back to his room to dump his stuff.

It’s buzzing downstairs; it feels like the summer again, that low-gut throb of hope and fear – _could we? Will we?_ It’s making his head spin – knowing that there are people out there, people he’s never met and never will, people whose lives he can’t even begin to imagine, who are happy tonight, in part because of things he did. It never gets normal. He can still hear the crowd.

He’s shoving his washbag and boots back in his suitcase when Dele clatters into the suite behind him. Eric isn’t particularly surprised; their eyes have been meeting across crowded canteens and coaches and pitches and dressing rooms all night, and there’s a difference between the thrill of winning, and the thrill of having Dele look at him like _that._

“Too loud for you downstairs, was it?” he asks, kicking the suitcase shut.

“Had to make sure you didn’t get lost.”

Eric laughs. He’s still not sure what’s stupider – Dele’s jokes, or him for laughing at them, every time.

“The boy Pencil’s thrashing Picks at pool,” Eric says, checking his phone. “Kyle says we should get back down there.” It’s just a lucky guess that Walks reckons Dele’s up here with him, he tells himself.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dele says. He’s leaning against the wall, kicking a heel against the skirting board and looking restless.

“What’s got into you?” Eric asks.

Dele shrugs. “S’just –” he pushes away from the wall and comes to stand by the bed. Comes closer. “Funny, innit? Like – a few months ago they put us out, and now we’ve – it’s just funny, you know. Might come home after all.”

“That’s football for you,” Eric says.

“Yeah,” Dele says on an exhale, and wraps his arms round Eric’s neck. They’re kissing before Eric knows what’s happening, the door of the suite still slightly ajar, their ears still ringing.

It’s another broken rule. It’s been happening in increments, for months now, all the lines that didn’t seem much to cross, at the time – easier to sleep over at Dele’s than haul himself back to his in the middle of the night, easier to drive into Enfield together than apart, easier to let himself touch Dele in front of Harry Hickford than to sit on his hands and act like they’re still just mates. Suddenly he looks back and the first line – the one where Dele was out of bounds – for looking, not touching, not for owning, not for him – seems a million miles away, a hundred years gone. Easier to be in love with him than not.

They don’t do this much – kiss, clothed, unhurriedly, aimlessly – except maybe they do, and Eric just hasn’t realised it, like all the other times he’s been slow on the uptake. _Why don’t we do this more,_ he thinks, his fingers cradling Dele’s skull.

“You do realise we’re in St George’s Park, and you’ve left the door open,” he says lightly, because he’s good at ruining things, and he's the  _sensible one,_ even though he hates playing that part.

“No fun, are you?” Dele says. “C’mere,” he says, his voice low and rough, and pulls Eric towards him again, bruising their mouths together. It’s as chaste as a kiss can be with Dele pressing his hips against Eric’s and their teammates two floors below making a fuss of the goalscorers.

“Fuck,” Dele murmurs. “Wanna –” He shivers a bit, and rucks Eric’s shirt up around his armpits, his thumbs raking over his rib cage.

_What do you want,_ Eric thinks, even as he hears himself making a stupid, feral noise in the back of his throat. “What you up to, Del?” he asks, laughing, like he doesn’t know.

“Don’t have to go downstairs, do we,” Dele mumbles, with his mouth against Eric’s neck. “Could just –” He doesn’t meet Eric's eyes as he reaches down to press a hand against Eric’s half-hard dick.

“Come _on_ , Del,” Eric says, unease gnawing at his stomach. “We can’t – come on, anyone could –” he presses his lips against Dele’s forehead.

“Yeah, yeah, _fine,_ ” Dele says, stepping back with fairly good grace. He tugs at Eric’s shirt, straightening it, then pulls Eric back into a loose hug. “Just like seeing you all – y’know –” he pats Eric gently on the cheek. “There. Good as new.”

Eric frowns. His heart’s pounding, and half of it’s the good stuff, the rush of being near Dele, and half of it’s bad – the door open, the world waiting to pounce on them.

“Good game tonight,” Dele says conversationally, his arms still draped around Eric’s neck.

Eric laughs. “Yeah. H saving our bacon as per usual.”

“Saving _your_ bacon. I don’t need carrying.”

“No?”

Dele quirks an eyebrow. “Stop being a dick; it doesn’t suit you.”

_What suits me,_ Eric thinks, and then, _you. You suit me._ He kisses Dele again, more softly than he’d intended, a bit like a whisper.

“Thought we were meant to be going downstairs,” Dele says in an irritating sing-song.

“Let go of me, then,” Eric says, his hands around Dele’s spindly wrists. Neither of them is moving. Dele wiggles his eyebrows at him again, and for a split-second Eric sees a flash of what everyone else sees; the shithousery, the conceit, the demon ready to come out.

Dele grins again, and then pokes Eric in the side and darts towards the door. “Come on, then, you big lump, can’t miss Stonesy’s finest hour…”

Eric feels like he’s been thwacked in the head. It’s a common feeling, these days.

Dele’s hyper as they make their way to the lift at the end of the corridor – he skips ahead, jumps up to catch the fire escape sign with the tips of his fingers, his shirt riding up over his hipbones, and Eric strolls after him, his hands in his tracksuit pockets.

“Come on, hurry up, it’ll all be over,” Dele says, jogging backwards with his hands outstretched to Eric. Eric’s always following him; this is how it always is, Dele racing ahead, and Eric in his wake, marvelling, spellbound, dragged along.

“Whose fault is that?”

“Don’t look at _me._ ” Dele wheels around and stabs the lift button repeatedly. The light at the top says the lift is seven floors above them. “Fuck’s _sake,_ ” he mutters.

“So damn impatient,” Eric says, grinning, and before he knows what’s happening Dele’s grabbed him round the waist and pushed him against the wall opposite the lift. He’s kissing him again, his mouth sure and warm and firm against his and his hands clamped around his sides. Eric feels like an insect on a pin. He’s too breathless to kiss back.

Dele pulls away abruptly, and cuffs Eric on the cheek. The corridor’s empty, by some miracle. On cue, the lift pings behind him.

“Come on, Eric Dier, don’t just stand there,” he says, and skips into the lift. Eric trails after him, off-kilter, like he’s underwater – there are other people in the lift, strangers, and they’re doing the thing people do sometimes, pretending they haven’t recognised them, but trying to catch each other’s eye to exchange excited _look-who-it-is_ glances. Eric leans against the wall of the lift and refuses to look at Dele. He wipes his mouth surreptitiously. He can almost hear his own heart thundering.

*

It’s just a select crew by the time they get down to the lounge. Walks is sprawled on the best sofa, on his phone and paying very little attention to the game going on in the corner.

“Alright, bellends,” he says cheerily as Dele and Eric traipse in. Dele clips him on the ear as he walks past. “Come to see the show?”

“You two done noshing each other off?” Picks says, only half watching as he takes a shot and sinks an easy red. Stonesy slaps his thigh and groans in frustration; Picks is three balls away from winning.  

“You what?” Dele snaps.

“Alright, _touchy_ ,” Picks says in that same light tone. “What you and Dier get up to is your business.” He grins at them over the top of his knuckles as he lines up his shot.

There’s a sudden edge to the conversation, though they’ve all heard the same before, and worse – _just banter, innit_. Everything’s gone sour, in a heartbeat. _Shut up,_ Eric wants to say. _Shut up, all of you._ He could be upstairs getting Dele off right now, and instead he’s here, nerves pulled so tight he might snap, watching Dele, his mouth suddenly dry with fear.

“You got a problem?” Eric hears Dele say, in the brittle, sharp tone he uses for errant linesmen and interviewers who ask him about his family. Stonesy tries to sling an arm round his shoulder, and he shrugs him off crossly.

Picks straightens up, laughing. He still thinks it’s a joke. “What?”

Dele crosses the room in three strides before Eric can grab him. He squares up to Jordan, his shoulders shaking. “I said, have you got a problem?” Eric can barely hear him, but he can hear the rage making his voice tremble. It feels like the world’s tilted.

“Dele, what the fuck, mate?” Jordan says, and he’s still laughing, bewildered.

Dele glares at him. Everyone’s watching. Eric feels like someone’s gripped his windpipe hard. He can’t say a thing; he can barely draw breath. Dele looks beautiful, almost _glowing_ with anger, like he might take the pool cue and stove Jordan’s face in with it.

“Del,” John says, with a tense giggle. “Come on, back off.”

Dele rounds on him, on all of them. “Any of you got a fucking problem?” he hisses. “I’m gonna – I’m sick of this – _fuck!”_ He gives the pool table a good kick; his foot hits the base with a horrible crunch that makes them all wince.

“Calm down,” Walks says, and there’s something impatient and serious in his tone that wipes the dumb grin off John’s face. It strikes Eric afresh that he’s older than them – game for a laugh, but too old for tantrums and scenes.

“Fuck off, Kyle,” Dele says, and storms out of the room.

There’s a horrible, empty silence. Down the corridor, a door slams. Eric flinches. John laughs, nervously.

“What the heck was that about?”

“Oh, don’t be so bloody  _thick,_ John,” Eric snarls, before he’s had time to think about it. He doesn’t wait around to see whether he’s understood. He follows Dele out into the corridor; it’s empty and quiet. He takes a heaving, gulping breath. It doesn’t help much.

His panic escalates as he half-jogs down the corridors, looking for Dele. It’s all gone to shit. Maybe this was always going to happen, when they started this – or when they started not being able to stop. Teammates gone, career gone, Dele gone. He berates himself for his naivety as he scours the hotel. _You don’t get to be happy, idiot. It’s not that simple._

He finds Dele in front of the door to his own room, trying to get his keycard to work, and even several yards away down the corridor Eric can see his hands are shaking.

“Del,” he calls. Dele ignores him. “Dele, come on.” He picks up his pace as he hurries down the corridor.

Dele rounds on him suddenly.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he hisses.

Eric recoils. “Wh-what?”

“This. _This –_ all this –” Dele waves a hand impatiently “—people _knowing_ and people _talking_ and – and –”

“Del, what –” Eric says. He feels like he’s going to be sick. “I didn’t – I was happy with it just – what the fuck are you talking about, I never asked you to – I didn’t ask you for anything. I don’t know what you’re –” He runs out of words, abruptly. Dele stands there, breathing heavily.

“I love you _,_ ” Eric says weakly, finally, for want of anything better to say. It’s not how he meant to say it – he was meant to have his mouth against Dele’s ear, gentle and honest, laying his whole heart bare for once, no banter, no dissembling.

“Yeah, I know,” Dele says dismissively. He rocks on the balls of his feet. Lately he always looks like he’s on the brink of running. “I love you, too,” he spits, like he's getting rid of something poisonous.

There’s no point asking Dele to repeat himself; he heard him full well the first time, with all the invective, and it won’t make it any better, hearing it again. It’s not how he imagined it. He thought it would fill up his whole world, but it feels grey and empty, and Dele’s still standing there with his arms hanging uselessly by his side, his fists balled into the sleeves of his jumper, looking like he wants to stamp his feet.

Suddenly Eric’s got nothing to say. He’s shown his hand, and it’s gotten him nowhere.

“Come on,” he manages. “Picks didn’t mean –”

“Yeah, he did,” Dele says. “Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s done. Too late.”

Eric reaches out for him, impulsively.

Dele slams the door in his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should have warned for Extremely British Sex Slang, sorry. Also no offence to Jordan Pickford, who I'm sure is a good egg really.


	10. Chapter 10

It feels like the wretched, lonely Everton days again. Rough scraps of sleep, his jaw clenched, the worry mixing up his dreams, and waking too early to lie awake for hours, thinking about training, and dreading it, _dreading_ it, the thought of stepping into the changing room almost paralysing. It feels like being too young, and too alien, and hopeless, and homeless. He’s never not wanted to train at Spurs. Even in rough patches, or when Poch was in a snit, it’s always felt fixable – one foot in front of the other, make it better, with people who like him and respect him and maybe love him, just get across the threshold, _make it better._ This might be irreparable, though.

He’s been awake since four, torturing himself, and he’s going to be late, even if he gets up _right now._ He rolls over on his side and grabs his phone. Nothing from Dele, though he’s not expecting anything. No one does frosty, spiteful silence like Dele. He scrolls through the Premier League table. Funny how things are going right, when everything’s going wrong. _West Ham,_ he wonders. They’d have him, probably, if Rice wasn’t in the way. Or maybe he needs to get out of London altogether.

He opens up an old chat. _então? como vai irmão?_ he types. It wouldn’t be so bad. Rui’s always telling him it’s fine – they mostly live in Birmingham anyway, and the gaffer’s the real deal, and they’ve got flamethrowers all along the pitch at every home game, _it’s kinda epic, bro._ Better than fine, perhaps.

He googles _Wolverhampton,_ and pulls a face at the image results. A new notification slides into view.

 _Are you dead?_ Jan texts. Then a photo of Sonny and Ben, pulling sad faces, halfway through their cereal.

Eric covers his face with his hands, as though that might erase the world, and when it doesn’t, he throws the duvet off in one smooth movement and hauls himself out of bed.

*

His stomach spasms uncomfortably as the doors to Hotspur Way slide open. No reply from Rui – he’s not sure what else he’s expecting. Something from the chairman, a terse and lifeless summons – or maybe a flurry of tabloid notifications, _England ace in gay love romp,_ maybe naming him, maybe not, maybe dragging Dele through the dirt with him. Maybe not. There’s nothing, anyway. It doesn’t make the hard, tight knot in his chest loosen.

He spots Dele’s car next to Nando’s. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad. Dele’s braver than him – he knows that. Braver, dumber, more reckless. But he might be inside right now, adjusting his shinpads, laughing it off, making it sound ludicrous, denying everything – and Eric’s gone over and over every split-second of the whole exchange back at St George’s Park, and thought about all the pinpoints at which it could have gone differently, every tiny hairline crack that could be a lifeline, the chance at denial.

“What time d’you call this?” Michelle on the desk says, and she’s beaming at him, like she always does, not at all like she’s worried or angry or disgusted.

Eric shrugs and tries for a sheepish grin. “Overslept,” he says.

“Hope you’ve got some cash on you,” she says, laughing. “Hugo’s got you in the book.”

Sure enough, when he darts into the dressing room there’s a chorus of cheers and jeers, and a lot of whooping when Hugo puts his hand out with a flourish, saying _fifty pounds please, this behaviour is unacceptable._

“Poor from you,” Tripps says, hands on his hips. “Disappointed, mate.”

Eric digs his wallet out and submits to a few good-natured slaps – he just catches a glimpse of Dele heading outside with Juan, pulling his hat on as he goes, and making no attempt to catch Eric’s eye.

Poch frowns at him when he gets outside, and taps his watch disapprovingly, and Eric nearly caves. It would be a relief, in a way, to duck into his office and put his hands up, ask for help – Poch was solemn, and sincere, and impassive, when he hauled him in to read him the riot act over the whole United debacle. He could do with the same now – a bit of tough love. Someone to tell him _shit or get off the pot,_ decide what’s important, stop leaving things in other people’s hands, for once, for _once._ Poch turns away to bark something at Toby and Ben, and the chance, and the inclination, slip away.

All through training, he’s waiting – for something, for someone to look at him oddly, or for Dele to brush him off, or for someone to hiss something hateful or thoughtless at him. It doesn’t come. He ends up on Dele’s team for seven-a-side, and when Dele heads a goal in from his cross Dele shouts with joy and gives Eric a quick, friendly hug before jogging back to their half. Eric stands stock still until Chris yells at him to wake up.

He sits with Jan and Mousa for lunch, and neither of them say anything, which means neither of them have heard anything, because they’re both too horrendously blunt for secrets. He’s not quite sure if Dele’s ignoring him, or if this is just how their days are, sometimes: just a little out of step. Maybe he won’t have to move to Wolves after all, or Hibs, or Olympiakos or whoever’ll have him. Maybe they can just carry on like this, exchanging passes and pleasantries and ignoring everything they mean to each other.

Just once, when they’re trudging out to the pitches again for the afternoon session, Eric lets himself think about the look on Dele’s face when he said _I love you_ : like honesty was a death sentence. It’s the worst look he’s ever seen on him – worse than the Iceland game in 2016, or the red card against Gent, when they found him slumped in the dressing room trying so hard not to let on he’d been crying. Eric never wants to see that look on his face again – and yet he’d give anything to be back in that corridor. Maybe, given another chance, he’d find the words – say something profound and brilliant and dazzling and true, something that might have made everything better, something that might have convinced Dele everything was going to be okay.

Then training’s over, and everyone’s slapping each other on the back, and breathing heavily, and saying goodbye. Eric watches Dele take a running jump and climb up on Davinson’s back as they lope back to the complex. He sinks weakly onto a crate of bibs, thinking. One day, managed. Completed. The truth out in the world, and the world still somehow spinning.

“Knackered?” H says, appearing behind him. He’s scooping a ball from one foot to the other lazily. A few deft round-the-worlds – H isn’t flashy, usually, and sometimes it’s easy to forget there isn’t much he can’t do with a football. He flicks it up and controls it on his chest, then brings it to his feet and perches on it. They sit in silence for a few moments, feeling the lactic acid dissipate.  

“Kyle told me what happened,” H says, with the same infuriating mixture of directness and evasion Southgate uses. Maybe they compare notes on _how to be responsible. How to have difficult conversations._

Eric doesn’t say anything. He’s not going to give H any help in incriminating him. He feels queasy again, after keeping it at bay all day with lung-busting runs and mindless drills.

“You could’ve told me, you know,” H continues. He’s steadfastly looking out at the training pitch, watching Toni launch low shot after low shot at Paulo.

“Yeah, I know,” Eric says quietly. He’s been expecting a confrontation all day, but he’s still not ready. Maybe this is why Dele always looks like he’s about to run. “I wasn’t – it’s not like I thought you’d be weird about it or anything –”

“That’s not what I – Dier, you’re my mate,” H says firmly. “Dele’s my mate, too. Just –” he glances at Eric briefly. “Don’t like to think you’ve been having a tough time.”

Eric nods, biting his lip. “It’s –” It doesn’t come easily. He’s spent so long _not_ talking about it. Toni sends a shot into the right hand corner. Paulo sprawls across the goal, and just gets his fingertips to it. H makes an appreciative noise in the back of his throat.

“Does everyone know?” Eric asks, burying his face in his snood.

H shifts on his makeshift stool. “Dunno. Don’t think so. Tripps, I guess. It’s not like – Walks wasn’t _gossiping,_ you know.”

Eric nods. “Yeah, I just thought.” He sighs. “I just didn’t want anyone – I didn’t want people – it was – I just wanted it to be me and him, for a bit.”

H doesn’t say anything. Eric can almost hear him thinking. It’s cold, and the sweat’s cooling on him, and he’ll have to go home sooner or later, back to the emptiness, so he clambers to his feet. H squints up at him.

“I –” he starts. He shades his eyes with his hand and looks up at Eric. “Listen, was it – was it like, a casual thing, like – were you two pissed or –”

“No,” Eric says shortly. “It’s not casual.”

“Oh,” H says. He looks as though he’s going to say something else, and Eric can’t stand it suddenly, H’s sensible, straightforward _sympathy –_ he needs to get out of there. He sets off across the pitches back to the complex at a lick, and by the time he reaches the building he’s broken into a jog, and he can no longer feel Harry’s eyes on the back of his neck.

He packs up in a rush, doesn’t change back into his street clothes, foregoes a shower. Maybe H is still sitting out on his ball, watching Paulo save penalties, thinking. He’s probably giving him space on purpose – where Jan would be too brusque, or Sonny too frantic, or Dele too damn impatient, too eager for attention. H isn’t as thick as people reckon, and his heart’s as big as the world.

Eric dashes to the car-park. Half an hour and he’ll be at home: doors closed, the world at bay. His phone vibrates as he’s getting into his car. He chucks his bag on the passenger seat and digs his phone out of his pocket.

The text’s from Picks. _just wanted to say sorry for other day @ st g,_ it reads. _didnt mean to offend you or dele. not really sure whats going on with you 2 but hope your both ok._

Eric exhales heavily. He peers out through the windshield. Winksy and Sonny are traipsing to their cars. Sonny’s laughing. There’s no sign of Dele.

 _Cheers,_ he texts back eventually. What else to say? He scrolls back through their chat. The last message is from August, Jordan sending him some interview of the two of them after the Colombia game, looking sweaty and dazed and exhausted. _Take me fuckin back,_ Jordan texted, back then. Eric chews his lip, thinking.

 _Still working out what’s going on,_ he texts finally. _Bit complicated right now – can you keep it to yourself for now? Gonna talk to Dele and work stuff out._ If he puts it in writing, maybe he’ll hold himself to it.

 _sure mate,_ Picks texts, and adds a couple of zipped mouth emojis for good measure. _tell del im sorry._

Eric sends a thumbs up, and pockets his phone. Not much else to say. He starts the engine. Toni waves at him as he pulls out of the car park. Bowie on the radio, _absolute beginners, with nothing much at stake._ Eric snorts and switches it off. Silence better than sentimental lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello everyone, sorry for the wait, and for lying ~~to myself~~ about this being ten parts. Thank you to everyone who is reading this; your lovely, kind comments never fail to make me smile and feel warm. 
> 
> Also, Eric Dier's views on the mighty Wolves don't represent my own. #WolvesAyWe
> 
> Big thanks to @dembovert for rescuing me from the curse of Google Translate Portuguese! <3


	11. Chapter 11

He spends the evening googling house prices in Wolverhampton, and composing half-written emails to Poch he’ll never send, and missing Dele. Arsenal are days away. Something in the air – the fine line between dread and excitement, between somehow craving it and yet hoping it never comes. Eric rolls his shoulder carefully and thinks about the one-twos he and Victor played in training – nothing sweeter, when the telepathy pays off and suddenly the pitch seems like a pinball machine, cross-hatched with little paths of light – passes that seem obvious, easy, inevitable, once they’ve happened, and were anything but. Eric closes all his Zoopla tabs.

There’s the usual action in the family chat, the five minute delays while his mum punctuates everything perfectly, the usual Alan Partridge gif responses from his brother, his dad chipping in every so often to tell them to stop pissing about and do some work. Eric stares at the messages blankly, watching the little ticks appear, and sends nothing back. It feels disingenuous to say anything, if he’s not saying what really matters.

In the end he goes to bed, because he’s got nothing better to do. He’s not given to self-pity, usually, but it’s hard not to feel maudlin about Dele’s toothbrush abandoned on the vanity, and the cluttered pile of moisturisers and aftershaves. A couple of hairs snarled in the comb Dele chucked carelessly onto the laundry basket before hustling back into the bedroom after Eric, probably laughing at him, probably pulling his jeans on and saying something forgettable which Eric would give anything to remember.

 _He’s not dead,_ Eric tells himself sternly, and shoves his toothbrush back in the Sporting mug next to Dele’s with unnecessary force.

*

He snaps awake without the usual in-between – almost like his body was bracing for it in his sleep. He knows immediately it’s Dele ringing the doorbell. The first sensation is a mild irritation that Dele gets the high ground now – the bragging rights of being brave enough to initiate contact. That’s what makes them tick, Eric thinks, padding downstairs, scrubbing a hand through his hair: the bite of competition between them. The magnet pull at the points where they’re different, and the rasp of friction where they’re not.

Eric takes a breath before opening the door, and decides he doesn’t give a fuck that he’s dressed in ratty, baggy pyjamas.

He saw Dele hours ago, skimming across the surface of the training pitch, the flow of his gait so distinctive Eric reckons he could pick it out with his eyes closed – but it always takes him by surprise. Dele’s eyes are almost black. The porch light is doing wonders for his cheekbones, and on another night maybe Eric would feel like telling him.

They stare at each other stupidly for a moment.

“Kyle said I should talk to you,” Dele says in a rush. He pauses, and looks at his feet. “H said so too.” It would be funny if their livelihoods weren’t on the line. Their lives, their happiness, together or apart.

“S’three in the morning, Del,” Eric says. Dele’s not wearing a coat. Eric looks at him blearily for a few moments. “Aren’t you freezing?”

Dele looks down at himself. “M’alright,” he says. “Don’t have to look after me all the time.”

 _Let me,_ Eric thinks. He grabs Dele’s wrist – cold, already, just from walking from the car and waiting on the doorstep – and pulls him inside. 

“Coulda used your key,” he says, locking the door again while Dele kicks his shoes off.

“Didn’t wanna freak you out – you’d have screamed if I’d just got in bed with you.” Dele doesn’t put his shoes in the rack.

Eric shrugs. “S’pose.”

“Look like a hobo in them jim-jams, mate,” Dele says.

“Is this your version of talking?”

Dele frowns. “Come on, it’s cold. Better in bed, yeah?”

Eric nods, though maybe if it’s the end, if this is Dele saying _that’s it,_ whatever _it_ is or was or might have been, it would be easier in the kitchen, kept at arm’s length by strips lights and cold tiles.

He trudges up the stairs after him anyway, feeling weirdly calm. The last time he felt it he was standing over the ball, twelve yards between him and Ospina, the din muffled, the weight suddenly lifted, barely aware of what he was about to do, and what it meant.

Dele leaves his jeans and his hoodie in a careless pile by the bed, and slides under the duvet. Eric follows him like someone’s programmed him. The bed’s still warm – he wonders if it smells different to Dele. He tries to lie down facing Dele, so that at least Dele has to look him in the eye to tell him they’re done – but Dele does something strange. He slumps himself across Eric so his head’s cushioned on his chest, and his arm’s around his torso. It might be called a cuddle, if Dele ever went in for that sort of thing.

Eric inches his arms gingerly around Dele’s shoulder so he’s hugging him closer. He can’t see Dele’s face from this angle, and maybe that’s for the best, because there’s nothing else guaranteed to derail his train of thought as quickly.

“I just – it’s just making – it’s stressing me out,” Dele starts midway through a thought.

“What – me?”

Dele’s jaw twitches against Eric’s sternum. “No,” he says. “Or – I dunno, I miss just – you know, pissing about, just messing about with the lads and not worrying about – it just always feels like I’m looking over my shoulder and stuff – you know?”

It’s like getting blood out of a stone, getting Dele to talk usually, and now here he is spilling his guts, in the strange unreal early hours of the morning. If Eric moves, or breathes, or says a word, Dele might remember that he doesn’t talk about his feelings: he keeps it in his rib-cage, sewed up tight, where no one can get at it, not even Dele. Eric doesn’t say anything.

Dele shifts a little, and Eric can feel his throat move when he speaks. “I just don’t want them all looking at us. It’s none of their – I can’t be doing with anyone treating me like I’m – or, like, what if the fans –” He tails off, and sniffs loudly, and then mumbles something inaudible into Eric’s soft old Eagles t-shirt.

“What?” Eric says. Dele raises his head a little, and looks up, enough that he can meet Eric’s eyes.

“I said, it’s alright for you,” he says, his chin defiant.

“Wha – what? Alright?”

“I mean – you’re – it’s different.” He’s mumbling again, and looking rebellious.

“How’s it – Del, it’s all – what, you think I _want_ the fans knowing -”

“Yeah, I know. Okay, maybe it’s not _alright._ I just mean – I know Raz and people get it worse. Doesn’t mean I don’t –”

“Del –”

“No, listen. I know it’s not – I know –”

Eric tightens his arm round Dele’s shoulder. A tangle of sinew and bone, a wiry, scrawny boy made strong and bulletproof by time. Toughened by the sheer effort of keeping his guard up. The tattoos like armour. Even in the dark of the bedroom, Eric can see where his skin ends and Dele’s begins, and that’s the crux of the whole thing, really, isn’t it?

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” he says softly. “I get it.” He thinks about every time Dele's refused to talk about his feelings, every ducked question, shrugged-off joke. Dele’s just trying to keep going. No wonder the rage is just beneath the surface, and the easiest way to react.

“Like, it’s hard enough, being – you know, you _know_ what people say about me, and all the stuff with my – my mum, and that – I just don’t wanna make it easier for people to –"

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you know.” Eric’s eyes prickle, thinking about Dele, growing up skinny and defiant and black, sometimes poor, sometimes not, sometimes feeling like the world had a place for him, sometimes not. And his own childhood – the memories almost washed out by the sun. He’s never been lonely, not once in his entire life, and he’s never had to worry about his options running out, and maybe that’s the difference.

“Easy for you to say.”

Eric presses his lips into Dele’s hair, the best combination of rough and soft. “Yeah, I know,” he says quietly. His career is on the cusp of unravelling, and he’s terrified; what must Dele feel?

“What did Kyle say?” he asks.

Dele takes a while to answer – Eric thinks he might be composing himself.

“Just – he said I need to get over myself and stop thinking anyone’s fussed who I’m shagging – like, anyone in the England camp, I mean.”

Eric laughs.

“And he said he’ll break your legs if you muck me about.”  

“Like to see him try.”

“He could though, he’s proper hard.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway, ‘cause I’m not gonna muck you about.”

“Promise?” Dele raises his head again.

Eric thinks about making a joke; it’s the natural reflex. A hard habit to break. Dele’s eyes are a bit red, though, and Eric thinks he can feel his heartbeat against his side, and he’s still not shaken the misery of a day of training with Dele ignoring him, and the determination never to feel that ever, ever again, so he goes for sincerity.

“Promise,” he says, and hauls Dele up his body so he can kiss him on the mouth.

“Listen, Del,” he says, rubbing his thumb across Dele’s temple. “I dunno, I just don’t reckon they’ll give a shit – I’m not saying we go in and make a whole big announcement or anything – I just, I think if we don’t bother with all the creeping around any more, and the hiding and stuff, I don’t think any of the lads’ll care. Can you imagine Jan or Chris or anyone caring? Or Winksy?”

Dele pauses, propping himself up on an elbow so he can look at Eric. “S’pose not,” he says.

“H said we should have told him, so we didn’t have to – he said he didn’t want us being miserable or whatever.”

“Yeah, he said that to me,” Dele says. “And he said he’d clobber you if you break my heart.”

Eric wrinkles his forehead. “Don’t know why everyone thinks _I’m_ the bastard all of a sudden. What about if you break _my_ heart?”

Dele laughs; it rumbles through Eric’s entire body. “S’pose they think you can sort yourself out.”

“Well, that’s flattering.”

Dele kisses him again. “We telling people, then?” His voice wavers a little. 

Eric shrugs. “Not, like, _telling_ people. Just like – agreeing not to freak out if people find out, yeah? I don’t – it's - listen, I’m, you know, in love with you, and I’m kind of sick of pretending I’m not. With - with the lads, anyway.”

Dele goes slightly pink. “You’re so dumb,” he says, flustered.

“Yeah,” Eric whispers, and pulls Dele close again, catching his open mouth with his, sliding their tongues together.

“No-one’s gonna – everyone knows the deal, they’ll know it can’t get out –” Eric says, before he gets too distracted by Dele’s palms cupping his hips. Dele hums in agreement, and shifts his body so he’s sprawled all over Eric. Eric’s legs fall open automatically to cradle him.

“And even if – even _if –_ like, worst case scenario, and it gets in the press – I’m not gonna bail, okay? We’ll worry about it together, okay? It doesn’t just have to be you.”

Dele’s eyebrows tighten a bit at the prospect. “Then what? We just – we won’t be able to keep on – can you imagine the abuse?”

“Okay, then we just – we just go off and do – I dunno, we do coaching or something. I like – yeah, I like football, I like it, I like the money, the _lifestyle,_ whatever – but I don’t – I don’t wanna –” Once he says it, it seems simple. The fear goes, suddenly.

“Same,” Dele says quietly. “I – I – like, obviously I wanna keep playing, but – yeah, what you said before. If it comes to it, I’m not gonna pretend I’m not – like, I think I could do without football if – yeah, if you were there as well.”

Eric raises his eyebrows. His chest feels tight, which might be Dele’s weight, or might be love.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Dele says. There’s no bite to it.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re – I dunno, you look like you’re –”

“This is my I-love-you face,” Eric says. It’s almost funny, how easy it is, and how long it took to get that way.

“Looks like you’re gonna do a murder, mate.”

“Yeah, that’s how much I love you.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re dumb,” Dele says, and rolls them over so they’re on their sides, their arms and legs jumbled.

“Must be,” Eric says. His eyes feel heavy. The wet of Dele’s mouth gleams in the dark.

“You falling asleep?”

Eric hums. Dele shifts next to him, so that they’re as close as they can be, and it’s not comfortable at all, and someone’s bound to wake up with a dead arm or a crick in their neck, and Dele’s mouth is damp and warm against his collarbone, and the hours before they have to get up for training are slipping away too quickly, but they might finally be on the same page – and Dele loves him, and doesn’t hate him for it, and the fear’s easier to swallow when they’re both in it together.

He’s trying to remember a time when they were just messing about, just mates getting each other off sometimes for a laugh – but maybe it was never that, even if they didn’t know it, maybe it was serious from the start, or before the start; he’s trying to remember the start, the very start, the kiss which maybe he initiated, or maybe Dele did - or maybe the start belongs years ago, unravelling time, all the way back to the first shared smile, the first pass, the first time they saw each other. He’s trying to remember, but he’s tired, and Dele’s snuffling against him, fidgeting as he fights sleep, and anyway, who cares where it started, or when, or how, or who was to blame, when this is how it’s going to carry on, calm and close, nearly brave, nearly perfect.


	12. Epilogue

Everything’s easier, and lighter. Eric forgets about Arsenal for hours at a time. He’s going to tell his parents, next time he’s home. Maybe he’ll text Gareth. They talk about telling Poch, one morning in bed, lazy and shagged-out, and if they don’t come to a decision, still, it doesn’t seem ludicrous.

“Will you do something about this?” Dele says on a Tuesday, half-dressed, gesturing at Jan, who’s down to three cards.

Eric shuffles his hand. “Mate, I’m fucking trying,” he says, and scowls at Kyle Walker-Peters. “Blame this dickhead, he’s the one that dumped a load of shite on me.” Dele’s down to five. Coco’s nowhere; he can barely hold his hand, he’s got so much rubbish.

Kyle smiles beatifically. “Guess I can help you out,” he says, and puts down a red reverse on the seven Dele’s just discarded.

Jan tuts. “You watch out,” he mutters threateningly. Dele nudges Eric with his hip and snickers.

“You lot not got homes to go to?” Tripps asks, but even as he says it he’s barging Coco to the side so he can see what’s going on. “Del, you’re fucked,” he says. “Jan’s hand is mint.”

Dele laughs. “Dier’s got me covered, aintcha?”

“Yeah, I got you,” Eric says. He pauses for a second, and looks up from his hand to catch Dele’s eye, and grins. “Read ‘em and weep, Vertonghen,” he says, and snaps the wild draw four down with a flourish.

Jan swears loudly. “Yes, you beauty!” Dele yells, pulling Eric towards him and kissing him soundly on the forehead.

“We’re not even playing teams!” Kyle protests, but Dele’s too busy grabbing Eric’s hands and whirling him round, whooping.

“Kyle, mate,” he says breathlessly, his hands all over Eric, “you don’t get it. Eric’s _always_ on my team.”

Eric feels giddy, and he’s laughing too, and even Jan’s grinning as he adds the last card to his hand. Dele ends up somehow clinging to his back, up on tip-toe with his chin hooked over Eric’s shoulder, squeezing Eric’s ribcage, like he does sometimes when Eric’s making tea for them and he’s trying to distract him, and maybe it looks like any old training-ground scrimmage, their bodies easy in each other’s space – but maybe they look like lovers, finally, like there aren’t any secrets left between them. The riot in the changing room’s not subsiding, and Dele’s still plastered all up his back, shrieking with laughter, and Tripps probably gets it, and Coco’s not blind either, and Jan's probably known for ages. Eric clutches at Dele’s hand, pressing it to his chest, and thinks _let them figure it out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for reading, and to everyone who's commented or left kudos, and especially to @awkwardsorta, @bakingblues, and @lordsanga for being as fond of Eric Dier's life choices and unreliable body as I am. Maybe one day he will even play football for the Tottenham Hotspur again: we live in hope. 
> 
> I am @electriclandlady on Tumblr; I mostly lurk these days but I like to make new friends who share an appreciation for emotionally constipated Englishmen.


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